In some applications, storage devices receive and store streams of broadcast digital media for subsequent viewing by a user. For example, a digital video recorder (DVR) may be programmed to receive a data stream that includes packets of data for multiple different channels (e.g., TV channels). For fastest recording, the received multi-channel data stream is sometimes written to a magnetic disk according to an order of data receipt, effectively intermixing data of different channels on the same common data tracks. For example, a single data track on a disk may store data for multiple different digital video channels. When data is initially written to disk in this manner and without regard for single-channel read throughput, large delays may be observed during read back of any individual channel due to rotational latencies incurred as a consequence of the data layout on the storage media.